Sox will be better, and they might even surprise

Like it or not, White Sox fans, your team's going to be better this year.

Now, it's been said that you'd have to be some kind of idiot to think the Sox can compete with Cleveland and Detroit, but I've been called worse than that just since breakfast, so label me a moron because I believe the Sox might be able to stay with one of those two clubs.

There's no doubt this flies in the face of conventional wisdom, not to mention angry fans' arguments that GM Kenny Williams didn't do enough over the winter, but how good might his off-season have been had Detroit not grabbed Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis at the precise moment that Williams was also trying to get Cabrera?

After all, Williams did quite a bit, even if he fell short of a few goals.

He added Nick Swisher and Orlando Cabrera, two pros at key positions who will lead and add joy to a clubhouse desperately lacking personality, character and an edge.

He signed setup men Octavio Dotel and Scott Linebrink to shore up the disaster that was the 2007 bullpen.

And he added guys like Carlos Quentin and Alexei Ramirez, both of whom Williams believes will end up being important pieces of a puzzle that has yet to be finished, especially considering the Juan Uribe waiver news of Wednesday.

You have to believe Williams still has something up his sleeve.

Granted, for this to work, the Sox need guys like Jermaine Dye, Jim Thome, Toby Hall and maybe even Joe Crede to defy the odds and stay healthy, and they need either the Tigers or Indians to have the kind of luck the Sox had a year ago -- the bad kind.

And, yes, there are still more questions than answers, but as is always the case, the keys reside on the pitching staff.

If Dotel and Linebrink don't earn their significant pay, the discussion ends right there, and our forecast that the Sox can compete will be laughable at best.

But if they do, the next question is whether Mike MacDougal will ever live up to his limitless potential, or will he just make Ozzie Guillen crazy again?

Same goes for Jose Contreras, without whom the Sox can't possibly stay in the race. With his personal problems behind him, can he rebound?

Even a little would mean a lot from John Danks and Gavin Floyd, but can they deliver?

If the answers to those questions are positive, the Sox will compete for a playoff spot.

Every year there are a few stunners in baseball, and it's not outside the realm that the Sox and their pitching staff can become one of those in 2008.

No one can dispute Cleveland and Detroit look unbeatable on paper, but they still have to play the games.

There are chinks in the Tigers' bullpen armor, and their starters are showing signs of fatigue. The Indians, while powerful, are far from perfect.

The Sox will be better, yes, but competing with the top two clubs in their division is a different story, a story that begins to tell itself in only 11 days.

Perhaps, it will even include a surprise ending.

Just asking

As long as we're climbing out on limbs littered with Ace Bandages, why not Josh Fields at second base?

Bracket broken

If you have any hopes of winning your office pool, we suggest you take a contrarian view of these NCAA selections:

Sweet Sixteen: ND over N.C.; Tenn. over St. Joe's; Vandy over KU; Wisconsin over G'town; Memphis over MSU; Stanford over Texas; UCLA over Drake; and Xavier over Duke.

Elite Eight: Tenn. over ND; Wisconsin over Vandy; Memphis over Stanford; and Xavier over UCLA.

Final Four: Tenn. over Wisconsin, and Memphis over Xavier.

NCAA champion: Tennessee.

The good guys

The White Sox will lend their ballpark to NIU for a game against Notre Dame on April 16 at 7 p.m., with all proceeds from ticket sales benefiting the NIU February 14 Scholarship Fund. Tickets ($10) will be available Monday at whitesox.com, the ballpark box office and the NIU campus box office.

The good cause

The Chicago Rush is helping raise awareness and funds for Camp Courage -- a camp for children living with grief -- at Saturday night's game at the Allstate Arena. For more info, visit chicagorush.com or hospiceanswers.org.

Ivan Boldirev-ing

Any day now we're going to start hearing from the Blackhawks that this is the time of year to judge their character, when there's nothing left for which to play.

Of course, you know it's just the opposite. You judge character in hockey by what happens when you need to win, not by what happens when the pressure's off, players are relaxed, and the result is meaningless.

Beware the spins of March.

Closing time

The shock is not that Kerry Wood is hurt again, or that the Cubs are buying some time before tossing Carlos Marmol to the wolves. None of that is news.

The surprise is that the Cubs, despite everything in Wood's history, are thinking of him as an everyday reliever.

He proved last year that he can be a decent setup man given a limited role and plenty of rest.

Why they feel the need to tempt fate is, at the very least, confusing.

Zoology

NBCsports.com's Mike Celizic: "It's about time the madness returned to the Bronx. I don't know if all this intensity is going to lead to a more competitive team, but I do know that it will lead to a lot more fun over the six months of the baseball season.''

The quote

The Blazers' Joel Przybilla on the Suns: "They're playing like the team they were talking about they were going to be.''

And finally ...

Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle: "I'm no expert, but with Barry Zito, I believe the problem is his release point. He needs to release the ball 10 feet closer to the plate."